Hot or not: LinkedIn data shows which jobs and skills are on the rise and which are fading

/Hot or not: LinkedIn data shows which jobs and skills are on the rise and which are fading

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Machine learning is in; Flash is out. Data scientists are in great demand, specialized developers, not so much.

These are just a few of the trends LinkedIn picked up in its 2017 Emerging Jobs Report. It’s no surprise that jobs in tech are growing faster than any other industry.

The fastest growing job over the last five years is machine learning engineer, as the number of open positions on LinkedIn has multiplied by nearly 10X. Data scientist came in second, with the number of jobs growing 6.5X since 2012.

Companies from all industries want machine learning engineers and data scientists, but LinkedIn’s data finds that there is not enough out there at the moment. The number of data scientist jobs is up 650 percent since 2012, and there are more than 35,000 people in the U.S. with data science skills, but LinkedIn reports that this is nowhere near enough to satisfy demand at the moment.

Also on the rise, in an indication of Amazon’s influence on the tech world, are customer-centric positions. Following the tech giant’s tenant of “customer obsession,” roles like customer success manager and “head of customer experience” are growing quickly.

On the flip side, super specialized roles are declining, regardless of industry. In the tech world, specialist developer roles and skills emphasizing older systems such as Java are fading fast.

The report looks back at the trends that have occurred over the last five years. But what it can’t do is look into the future.

Citing a forecast from the Institute for the Future, the report predicts that 85 percent of the jobs that will exist by 2030, haven’t even been invented yet. Many workers appear to recognize this possibility, as LinkedIn reports most professionals are worried their skillsets will be out of date as soon as a year or two from now.